Most of us are familiar with our muscles and have some idea what they do. But besides enabling us to stand upright, move and provide power to do many things, muscles are an important part of a feedback mechanism.

The brain sends signals through both conscious and subconscious pathways to the muscles through the nervous system. Muscles in one part of the body give information about other areas by sending back messages through the nerves to the brain from not only the muscles but the joints as well. The joints, the point where two bones join, are like hinges. When the joint is moved by the muscles, signals are sent to the brain informing it of what movements are taking place and the position of the body. The subconscious messages are sent to an area of the brain called the cerebellum. Here, the information is integrated with messages sent in from other locations in the body. This allows the brain to coordinate body movements through the muscles.

Similarly, the ears and eyes subconsciously communicate with the brain as well, and must interpret and return commands to the body, telling it how to move, stand and function. If someone walks up beside you and speaks, you turn (muscle action) and look (eyes) toward them. Besides hearing, our ears are part of the body’s balance mechanism. Messages sent from the ears also go to the cerebellum. It is the ability of these systems to work together which allows the muscles to make proper motions. When working properly, this whole system allows our muscles to keep us standing up straight and moving around with efficiency.

The conscious messages are sent through an area of the brain called the thalamus. This is a “switchboard” which integrates the conscious messages with those subconscious ones from the cerebellum. The thalamus takes this information and sends it to another part of the brain called the cortex, which then, based on all this information, tells our muscles specifically what to do.

Looking at this whole mechanism we can see that there is an incredible amount of fast moving information which must work in harmony to maintain movement and balance. Even if one muscle is not balanced, there is improper subconscious signals sent to the cerebellum, and the information sent to the thalamus will be flawed which, in turn, distorts the information the cortex receives, causing the wrong messages to be sent to the muscles. The result is poor body function, whether it is posture, movement, coordination, etc. This becomes a vicious cycle where now an imbalanced body sends confused messages, conscious and subconscious, to the brain with potential whole body dysfunction. Then the brain will do everything in its power to compensate for the imbalance of information to keep us erect and moving forward. Confused and twisted but functional.

How can we break this vicious cycle of imbalance (stress)? By correcting, or balancing, the muscle problem. Correcting the muscle imbalance restores normal function of the communication mechanisms. This gives the brain effective control over the whole body.

One important tool used is standard muscle testing. This provides a vital piece of information in the appraisal of body performance. Muscle testing has been shown to not only evaluate the local function of that particular muscle, but the state of the muscle also provides clues about other areas of body function.

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